We Are Paper Pregnant!

We recently began letting our friends and family know that we are in the process of adopting a little girl into our family. Some are still hearing the news and there has been a FLOOD of questions. Everyone is so excited for us. We are really excited too! To try to make it a bit easier, I am going to try to answer some of those questions in this post and give updates as well here.

We have been open to adoption since we were married (I have dreamed of adopting since high school). But we always said someday. We have been blessed with three biological boys. They are each a miracle as I have had some pretty rough pregnancies. We often get asked if we are going to try for a girl and my response is…. “We DID! Three Times!”

This past December God made it clear to Jon and I that we were no longer to wait and talk about “someday” adopting. The number of children without families in Michigan is growing. Why should we make them wait for us to be ready? So, we started the process of getting licensed to adopt in January.

We are going to be adopting through the Foster Care System in our state. Michigan has almost 10,000 children in Foster Care during the coarse of one year. Almost 3,000 of them will have their parents rights terminated and be left without a family until someone adopts them. Jon & I just can’t fathom those numbers of children who are hurting.

Our official state approval and license came in the mail last week! We are “Paper Pregnant.” Here is what that means.

1. We expect to adopt a girl under the age of 4.

2. We don’t know who she is at this stage in the process.

3. We don’t know when we will be matched with our little girl.

4. We don’t know how old she is or what size she is.

5. We are totally excited and feeling anxious to meet her!

6. We are praying to have our little girl in our home within the next 9 months. (It could take shorter or longer)

There are no clear answers when you are working through the Foster System. We don’t get to pick our baby. We just know that God wanted us to get ready for a special little girl THIS year and get ready for our lives to be changed forever!

I hope this answers some of your questions. I know there aren’t many definite answers at this point. What I would love to ask of you, my friends & family… Will you pray for our little girl? She is so special to God and I know she is going to be special to us and to all of you!